bizcocho in bed
Spanish huelga on the streets
sunny ‘snow day’
Huelga de la Lluvia
bizcocho in bed
Spanish huelga on the streets
sunny ‘snow day’
government
Drooping Blue Tents
we have a car
but are now so accustomed
to walking
that it sits in front of our building
we move across town,
the streets as familiar
as the smiles on their faces.
we order beer, wine,
and a baklava-like mirengue-topped
pastry that tastes like s’mores
and is gobbled up in two minutes
they stand in front of the circus sign
and we make our way across the bridge,
Reina Victoria in our back pocket,
coupons ready
for the first time we witness
the financial crisis
that weighs heavily on
the drooping blue tents,
kids as young as five performing,
throwing in camels, pythons,
and even Monster High,
holding up a sign at the end,
¡Viva El Circo!
while two-thirds of the seats
are vacuous reminders
of where people are
on a Saturday night
best. circus. ever.
is what my girls say,
never complaining once
about the long walk home
but all i can hear,
all i can see
as we move along rain-washed sidewalks,
their tiles as slippery as death,
is the American song,
“Unbreak My Heart”
whose Spanish rendition
and brightly-lit acrobatic act
brought tears to my eyes
the words
though they didn’t belong
the seats
though mostly empty
trampled out the desperation
that sits unspotlighted
in the back of every
slightly drooping circus tent
The Single Window
not a window,
not even a mirror, but
a singular view of the world
whose translation is all but lost
it is a desk
with a small man
filing paperwork in the same office
where i stood twenty-five days back
(the first time i thought to be done)
just like everything governmental,
there is no explanation,
no offering of help,
no taking of envelopes from one
desperate-to-get-paid employee
to the paper gods in Murcia
and why didn’t you send it all through
la ventanilla única? he asks,
as flippant as the day is bright.
oh, i want to reply, Google translate ready,
you mean the single window?
sorry, didn’t realize
that the windows of the world
could be hidden so obscurely
behind words that are doors
My Paper Highway
This is not a paper trail. This is a paper mountain, a paper highway. A dragon, perhaps? (Or would its fiery breath burn everything to useless cinders)? From gathering paperwork for five beginning in May (remember this one? One of Five) and ending on one last string of hope with printed boarding passes, I have thought many times, the paper trail ends today. It ends with the visa in the mail. No, with the printouts of hotel and car rental reservations. Oh wait! The bank account setup, phone contract, and lease agreement. But… you mean, I need a foreigners’ social security number? And my husband too? AND my three girls (EVERYTHING x5)?
I even put a Facebook post, a month ago: DONE with Spanish paperwork! So proud! Until… the light bill. The employment paperwork, more trips to the bank, the ayuntamiento, more forms to print, make copies of, mail (it got to the point, with the shitty Spanish hours of 9-2 for everything, that we gave up and bought our own fucking printer).
Bruce said to me today, “No more paperwork for years!” I almost laughed in his face. “Are you forgetting that in eight months I have to renew my teaching license, get a new job, find an apartment, sign up for a new cell phone plan…” the list goes on.
This is the year of my yellow-brick-road of paperwork, the sheets the bricks leading me to the compilation of my dreams, the carpe diem of my life… My paper highway, like a long tail trailing behind me, is all a matter of moments traded for filling out forms to sunning on the Mediterranean, to seeing Picasso’s art in person, to visiting Roman ruins.
I think I’m done, I’m really done! (Oh wait… I have to vote? To print, complete, scan, email…?)
Just Another Day in Spain
The first day of first, third, and fourth grade! In SPAIN!
It begins at dawn, though the remainder of the world would not consider 7:30 a.m. dawn. Perhaps the sun setting at 21:00 in mid-September and not rising till 7:30 is just one of the reasons Spaniards wander the streets till the middle of the night, why they sleep in the middle of the afternoon.
I rise and get myself ready, everything about my movements pins and needles. The first day of school is always nerve-wreaking to mothers, but for my girls to start school (and not the one I wanted) that will be wholly in a new language, in a foreign country, where none of us know a soul? It’s no wonder I didn’t sleep.
They don’t particularly want to go, either, but are happy to put on regular clothes rather than the silly uniforms required by their charter school in the States. Before I know it, dawn has passed, dishes are washed, and we’re walking down the six flights of stairs to the street, where we see other mothers and children walking. This brings instant relief to my girls, who love pointing out all the children, noticing their backpack types, their shoes, their clothing.
We stand outside the gates of the school with the other parents, taking pictures like we always do on the first day… until we realize that we are the only ones taking pictures. Of course, let’s put a spotlight on our Americanism. Soon a nice mother comes up and speaks in English (albeit broken), telling us what to do as they open the doors and letting us stand on the patio. In a few moments, a siren-like bell rings, and all the kids shuffle in the school, parents left outside. Bruce and I exchange looks of panic. We don’t even know what classes the girls are in. How will they? But before we know it, the secretary comes out and allows us in, only for us to discover the school is so tiny that there is only one section per grade! (And I thought we were lucky at their class size limitation of twenty-three!)
We look through the doorways at all our girls’ apprehensive faces, wave goodbye, and head onto our day of adventure.
All I need to do is make copies, pick up my debit card at the bank (26€!!—must everything cost an arm and a leg??), and spread out flyers advertising my English tutoring. We are interrupted in front of the copy shop by a huge strike moving along in front of the Ayuntamiento, men in blue uniforms holding signs about the government robbing them, all plugging their ears at optimal moments before letting loose cannon-like firecrackers in the streets, their voices and faces a mixture of jubilation and angst. The fluorescent-green uniformed police stand on the outskirts of their demonstration, their raucous and cannons just a part of their day.
We move on into the busy morning of Cartagena, taping up flyers and stopping at the grocery store where everyone in Spain is shopping before school gets out. We tear off giant pieces of French-style bread on our way back to the apartment, and before we know it, the arduous four hours of school are over, and we stand again with the rest of the parents outside of the gate.
The same siren releases our girls, who come out with giant smiles and tales of their day so similar to the tales from home, relief washes over all of us. Mythili made four friends, has multiplication homework with four numbers on top, and is adamant about us buying her books and supplies by morning. Riona admits that she understood only some of what her teacher said, but she made a friend who shared crayons with her. Isabella, sentence by sentence, tells me all the grammatical errors and vocabulary she fixed for her English teacher, pointing out that she could teach that class (I have no idea where a daughter of mine would get an idea like that!!).
I then set out on an adventure of my own: shopping for the infamous libros de texto I’d been told would cost a fortune. I ride the bike across town, Mythili’s school supply list in tow, to Carrefour, Spain’s Wal-mart. It is only when I enter the store and begin looking at her school supply list that I realize, again, that I don’t speak Spanish. Libreta? Carpeta? Caseras? As if school supply shopping isn’t difficult enough, I am searching for items that I have no clue what they are! Can Mexico and Spain make an agreement and share the same language, puuhh–leeez!!
Then the books. NONE are on the shelf. Lined up behind the counter are all the organized-people-in-the-world’s preordered, boxed-beautifully libros de texto. I start to panic, and take out my iPhone, quickly typing in the ISBN numbers the school provided, hoping Amazon will save me as always. After four entries of “No disponible,” I begin to realize the truth behind what my Spaniards had warned me was a huge publishing scam. No one can buy these books on discount or order them online. We are victims to overpriced bullshit!!
I send a Skype chat to Bruce that just repeats FUCK four times, then finally have my place in line fulfilled. Giving the sales associate my iPhone and Mythili’s list, he disappears into the back to retrieve my books. Well… two-thirds of my books. The remainder he doesn’t have, and as usual, I don’t know the right words to ask him if they’ll order more, and I’m running late anyway, so I book it out of there, penniless in my pursuit (ummm. 5€ for a NOTEBOOK??)
I fill my backpack and two saddlebags with all the supplies, patting myself on the back for at least having the adamancy to bring my bike! What a relief! I rush up the six flights of stairs with all that in tow, thinking, I sure as hell don’t need a gym this year. Then shower, dress, off to my first appointment with potential clients, who meet me in front of the giant JCPenney (AKA Corte Inglés, twelve stories in the making), and of COURSE we go to a café. Ironically, I order my Spain-usual café con leche, and they each order a Coke.
We talk for more than an hour, and somehow manage, with my broken Spanish, to arrange tutoring with their three- and six-year-old sons for four hours a week! (No need to mention I have no idea what I’ll be doing, and I think it’s just glorified babysitting in English, but whatever!)
Then Bruce and I make our first Spanish tortilla, for the most part successfully interpreting the Spanish directions on the baking powder package, and it’s a hit with all the girls, who BEG to go to the park after dinner as those are the hours that kids will actually BE there. And they’re right. It’s party time at the park, and Isabella makes a friend who comes up to her parents on the adjacent bench bragging about her American friend, with her parents’ response being, “Que suerte.”
We are lucky. While in the park I receive four emails inquiring about tutoring!! On the walk home at eight-thirty, Mythili has switched her ever-imaginary talk with dolls to Spanish, and we put the kids to bed so I can head to Corte Inglés for one more attempt at books… to no avail.
But it’s just another day in Spain. There’s always tomorrow between nine and two, where I can witness a strike, have a café, and make the most of every moment.
The Top
Doubt and stress have plagued me for months. You may think I am different from you, a standout among your citizens. But I am just like every other American, fighting my way to the top, working, working, working till there’s nothing left to work for.
There is a difference, though. I am working for a different top, a different experience, one that cannot be achieved by sitting on my back patio and complacently watching my children push each other on the tire swing.
The blood, sweat, and tears I’ve put into my version of the top are not much different, though, than any MBA-proud corporate employee climbing his way up the ladder to the corner office, the brightly lit view of downtown, the paycheck that buys his family all they’ll ever need or want… His presence not included.
I want a top where we’re all there, watching the moon rise in the still-light-at-8-o-clock twilight, our tired eyes too overwhelmed to accept the shift that has moved us from one continent of thought to another.
It may look the same. There are maples and evergreens, dry plains and rose bushes, mountains starving for moisture. Just like home. There’s a Burger King, McDonald’s, Starbucks. They’re right there, along the same boulevard that leads to the king and queen’s palace, the plaza mayor, the Roman built museums and churches. Even along the highway, you might think you’re driving in Kansas, as one wind farm after another pepper the landscape, propellors spinning languidly in the heat that has followed us across an ocean.
Let’s try some fast food, shall we? It’s inside this tiny restaurant with tables on the sidewalk. Tortilla de patatas, sardinas con aceitunes, cafe con leche, langosta pequeña, tastes that pop in our mouths, that burst with whole ingredients our American stomachs can’t quite identify. We will sit for hours, Spaniards sharing their stories, asking about ours, lingering over a meal with so many small courses that we fear it may never end. Each time another platito comes out, we hear, “Muy tipico de España.” I want to say, “Us? We’re very typical of Americans.” But I know it wouldn’t be true.
I didn’t even need to leave the airport to shed, after a walk down marble steps into a heat-filled baggage claim, my typical American view of stress, doubt, fear, loss. We’d been traveling for twenty hours, loaded down with three girls, eight bags, and all our dreams. To move from one gate to another in the Toronto airport, we had to stand in line, fill out declaration forms and get our passports stamped (I thought we were buds with Canada?).
But in Madrid? Six empty windows with sharply-dressed, handsome Spanish police officers stood waiting for our arrival. I swallowed, ready to answer twenty questions, ready to declare all that they could ask of me, ready to complete an array of paperwork with my broken linguistic abilities. Instead? One officer took our five passports, opened them up to the page with the visas, stamped them, handed them back, said, “Bienvenidos a España,” as simply and suddenly as he’d taken them in his hands. Not a question, not a form, not a single complication.
I’m still fighting my way to the top. It may look a little different, linger a little longer on the realm of success as seen by others. But my version of the top began in that moment, the moment I realized that things don’t have to be as complicated as we make them out to be. We could, for a year at least, immerse ourselves in the relaxed Spanish view of the world. Will I be able to reach my dream, to reach for the top? Perhaps, perhaps not. But whenever I feel myself falling off my ladder of success, I will open my passport, look at that stamp, and remember what it is that I came here for.
Our Visa Miracle
clouds, mountains, lake, sun
a beach day like no other
WE’RE GOING TO SPAIN!!!!
Puncture Wound
you are the hole in my tube,
tiny as a pin prick,
a puncture wound,
not for one second
able to hold the air
i fruitlessly pump.
your removal is tedious,
leaves road remnants
and layers of unwashable dirt
on my palms and fingertips,
takes an extra set of hands
and real strength to complete.
i haven’t the strength
to discover how you ruined my day,
only the muscles to move on,
to accept that you’re now
lying on the floor of my garage,
a haunting shadow
that tries to follow me everywhere.
Big Brother
Dr. Mr. Orwell,
You were right.
Big Brother hovers,
an omnipotent cloud
sneaking into every crevasse
of the glaciers
he’s placed in front of
our harrowed steps
up the mountain
none of us knew we’d climb.
Without a word
escaping our lips,
he knows our thoughts
and places his restrictions,
garishly flashing sound-bitten ads
on the pages
we once were able
to read in silence.
Just like Winston,
we seek shelter
among proletariats
who suck at our teets
with wanton thirst
for all that he will not allow
us to provide for them.
Big Brother has ensured
no shelter,
for it would detract
from the icy hike
he has put in place of
the rolling surreal hills
of the life
he won’t allow us to imagine.
I ask now,
as you toss in your tormented grave,
how so closely you could examine
the future,
how so bitterly you could speak
of the unwanted brutality of truth,
how so easily you could predict
the world we would rather depart
than be a part of.
Tide
her words flow over my shoulders
in waves of icy discomfort.
i watch your accepting faces
swallow the saltiness of
the ocean that year after year
never lets loose its high tide.
but you are swimmers
and her words won’t drown you.
you will build rafts
and zip up your wet suits,
ready for the relentlessness
of the moon-over-shoulder tide.
i wish i learned to swim like you.
when i spit back her wave of words
to him (hours later), my breath escapes me,
stolen by the tide. my arms reach
for your rafts, your suits, your warmth
that the icy waters swallow as i drown.
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